After a two year hiatus, TEDxSFED has resurfaced as a salon series. Each salon will have one speaker who will address the need to support learners of all styles as well as an activity afterward to dive deeper into the idea that was just presented.

In a series of four salons over the next twelve months, TEDxSFED will focus on one theme – Validate All Learners.

This series is meant to explore the fact that the work being accomplished in many industries can translate into the world of education, and in turn ensure that all learners are validated and can thrive.

Our first salon, on February 21st, will feature Minnie Bredouw, who will explore the following – what it means to validate all learners

Speaker | Minnie Bredouw

Minnie is a Senior Designer at global design firm IDEO with a focus on ethnographic research, system design, and user experience (UX). Prior to IDEO, she worked at frog design, spending much of her time focusing on social innovation and education. Having gotten her career start designing interactive exhibitions and campaigns for a few smaller companies, she is always thinking about the experience of learning through good design and how to best facilitate user participation & engagement.

She has worked with a handful of organizations focused on the greater good such as The Girl Effect, UNICEF, Prototype Design Camps, and Youth in Focus, and her work has been recognized in Fast Company, Worldchanging, Microsoft Design Exposition, NPR and the Experience Music Project. Her most recent contribution was developing the Community Action Toolkit, an open source guide to Design Thinking. She believes every person has the power to be creative and is passionate about inspiring new ways of learning.

Schedule + Location

Registration

Registration for the TEDxSFED salon will open at 9am on Thursday, January 31st. The cost of attendance will be $20 + Eventbrite fees. The fee covers attendance and light faire. In addition, there will be a cash bar. To register, please visit this link or pay below.

Photography by @mceoin
Get more info on freestyle hip-hop improv crew The Freeze!

For those who couldn’t attend the late afternoon EdCamp breakouts, below are the topics our attendees have created for discussion.

The first EdCamp sessions selected:

Teachers as innovators / designers: How might we make it easier to innovate then to stagnate?

Teaching Sustainability.

The role of technology in disruptive change.

The second EdCamp sessions selected:

Learning without school: Autodidachism, Homeschooling, DIY Ed.

Strategies for integrating design thinking into teaching standards based curricula.

Social games: Virtual worlds & augmented reality in education.

The third EdCamp sessions selected:

Students as scientists: How do we cultivate the next generation of critical thinkers?

Our online world is connected: How to teach awareness.

An education of self: How can we help students know themselves as a result of their education instead of in spite of it?

Thank you to all of our sponsors, attendees, organizers, speakers and hosts. Without you this wouldn’t be possible. We look forward to our next #TEDxSFED gathering and building a stronger community with you.

On Tuesday the 22nd of February, KQED hosted our first ever speaker search. People from around the bay area were given the opportunity to speak for 3 minutes on how they we can “re-imagine education”. We had 15 talks from speakers that ranged from a parent to a CEO. The talks were powerful and covered everything from engaging parents in the learning process to empowering science class by having students create their own outcomes.

Thank you

We would like to thank each of our speakers for their efforts. Without their work there would not have been an event. Each of the following speakers put a great deal of thought into their talk and we are very grateful.

The crowd that attended this event voted on their favorite talks. The winner was David Orphal, the Small Learning Communities Coordinator at Skyline High School. Orphal will present on April 9 at TEDxSFED at SOMArts.

We would like to make a special thank you to KQED and Mindshift. They were amazing hosts and our event was possible because of the work they did in order to help make last night a success. In particular, we would like to thank Jamedra Brown, Scott Shafer, Robin Mencher, and Tina Barseghian.

Next Up

Finally, our last lead up event will take place at TechShop on March 12. Bring your child or student to hear Gever Tulley speak about, Brightworks, his new school and make LED Lamps. This event will be specifically for students from the ages of 12 to 18.

TEDxSFED officially kicked off last night at an event hosted by the Hub SoMa! A huge thanks to all who made time to attend.

The sold out event featured a talk by Dr. Milton Chen, Senior Fellow and Executive Director Emeritus of Edutopia at the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Dr. Chen’s latest project, a book entitled “Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools,” presents a new vision for what education in America can be based on existing groundbreaking models for teaching and learning that are in schools right now. Among the observations Dr. Chen made, was the need for educators and the community to change its thinking about what schools are. Some schools have even changed their vocabulary to impact their new mindset, such as calling themselves learning centers and calling teachers facilitators. Chen concluded by reminding the audience that there are more opportunities than ever to let the kids lead, and provide them with the responsibility to teach up to adults and to support younger kids in learning endeavors.

The TEDxSFED team also provided a quick overview of TEDxSFED’s mission, lead-up events, and registration for the main event on April 9. In an effort to make TEDxSFED inclusive and more of an ongoing dialogue about the theme, “mashEDup: re-imagine education,” TEDxSFED will be comprised of a series of events that each highlight emerging learning paradigms that have the potential to transform education in the classroom. The team announced lead-up events over the next few months with KQED, TechShop San Francisco, and Zeum. Visit the TEDxSFED events page to learn more.

Our next lead-up event will be hosted by KQED in February where one of the ten speaking slots will be curated by attendees. Thought leaders from the Bay Area are invited to register to participate in the TEDxSFED “Speaker Search” on February 22 by pitching their idea in front of a live audience. Folks may also apply online by submitting a video through the TEDxSFED site.

We are over the moon about the turnout and hope we’ll gain even more momentum at future events!

We’re excited to announce that Milton Chen, author of Education Nation and senior fellow at Edutopia will be the featured speaker at our kickoff. He’ll be sharing his thoughts about the six leading edges of education for the 21st century.

Hope you’ll join the TEDxSFED team for an evening of inspiring conversation and practical next steps!

Also, the application process to present at TEDxSFED will open at this event as well. If you are interested in presenting at TEDxSFED on April 9th, please try to attend this kickoff. We’ll have a Q&A for the application process. Contact us via @TEDxSFED on Twitter if you have questions!

To lead up to the big TEDxSFED event in April, we are hosting 3 smaller events for local educators to network and share ideas about how education can be re-imagined in the Bay Area and beyond.

Our first one will be January 19th at Hub SoMa. The goal of this event is to bring together like-minded educators to network and share ideas, practices and successes in education.

We believe we are amid a real learning renaissance and there are many directions this could lead us. Indeed, it is a thrilling time for learning and education. We hope you’ll join us to explore some possibilities!

At the event we will officailly open up the application process for attending TEDxSFED.

In addtion, there will be a guest speaker and if you are interested in presenting at TEDxSFED on April 9th, we’ll also have time for a Q&A session to guide you through the application process.

TEDxSFED is an independently organized TEDx event focused on education. The event will be held on April 9, 2011 at SOMArts in San Francisco, CA. The goal of TEDxSFED is to provide a platform for those interested in education to come together, discuss new and innovative approaches to learning, while using those ideas to implement plans that improve the status of education.

TEDxSFED will create an opportunity for people from all walks of life to come together and rethink where, how, and when we learn.

The theme of this year’s event is “mashEDup: re-imagining education”. Mash-ups are drawn from a compilation of pre-existing sources to create a new derivative work. Like a mashup, TEDxSFED will offer the opportunity to rethink what education can become by mixing together many different perspectives. The goal of TEDxSFED is to introduce educators to new ideas and provide the opportunity to then take those ideas and make something of them.

There will be a number of events leading up to TEDxSFED that will be dedicated to introducing some of these ideas. These events will range from evening salons to action oriented barcamps. In addition, TEDxSFED will be not only about introducing ideas but doing something with those ideas. A portion of TEDxSFED will be dedicated to taking the ideas presented at the actual TEDx event and turning them into action.

In the coming months, this blog in addition to our Twitter and Facebook pages will be our primary means of relaying updates and announcements regarding TEDxSFED any events prior to our April 9, 2011 TEDx event.